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. 2016 Nov 8;113(45):E6911-E6918.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1607793113. Epub 2016 Oct 24.

Increased risk of dementia in the aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

Hiroyuki Hikichi  1 , Jun Aida  2 , Katsunori Kondo  3   4 , Toru Tsuboya  2 , Yusuke Matsuyama  2 , S V Subramanian  5 , Ichiro Kawachi  5
Affiliations

Increased risk of dementia in the aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

Hiroyuki Hikichi et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

No previous study has been able to examine the association by taking account of risk factors for dementia before and after the disaster. We prospectively examined whether experiences of a disaster were associated with cognitive decline in the aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. The baseline for our natural experiment was established in a survey of older community-dwelling adults who lived 80 km west of the epicenter 7 mo before the earthquake and tsunami. Approximately 2.5 y after the disaster, the follow-up survey gathered information about personal experiences of disaster as well as incidence of dementia from 3,594 survivors (82.1% follow-up rate). Our primary outcome was dementia diagnosis ascertained by in-home assessment during the follow-up period. Among our analytic sample (n = 3,566), 38.0% reported losing relatives or friends in the disaster, and 58.9% reported property damage. Fixed-effects regression indicated that major housing damage and home destroyed were associated with cognitive decline: regression coefficient for levels of dementia symptoms = 0.12, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.01 to 0.23 and coefficient = 0.29, 95% CI: 0.17 to 0.40, respectively. The effect size of destroyed home is comparable to the impact of incident stroke (coefficient = 0.24, 95% CI: 0.11 to 0.36). The association between housing damage and cognitive decline remained statistically significant in the instrumental variable analysis. Housing damage appears to be an important risk factor for cognitive decline among older survivors in natural disasters.

Keywords: Japan; dementia; disaster; instrumental variable analysis; natural experiment.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Map of inundated area in Iwanuma city, Japan. Reproduced from ref. .
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Participants flow for analytic sample (n = 3,566).
Fig. S1.
Fig. S1.
Levels of housing damage and distance from coast to each residence. The severity of housing damage becomes smaller as distance from epicenter and coastline become larger.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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